7 Secrets To Making Your Veggies Taste Crazy Delicious

No doubt, a pan of roasted Brussels sprouts or heirloom tomatoes drizzled with balsamic vinegar beat the pants off the canned or boiled vegetables that most of us grew up with (sorry, mom!) But after a while, even those enlightened prep techniques can get a little boring. So how can you take pretty-good veggies to the next level? Here, six pros share their secrets for transforming your plant fare from mundane to mind-blowing.

Cook your greens in pan drippings.
Next time you're making a chicken or roast, save those pan juices. While your meat rests, sauté a big pile of spinach or Swiss chard in the drippings, says Louis Malonado, Top Chef alum and executive chef of Northern California's Spoonbar and Pizzando. It's way more flavor-packed than the usual olive oil-garlic combo, and saves you from having to clean another pan.

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Say yes to the spiralizer.Spiralizing might not change the flavor of your veggies. But it does let you eat them in new, unexpected ways—which is sometimes all you need to make a boring food fun again. Instead of tossing sliced carrots in your stir-fry, serve spiralized carrots underneath your stir-fry like noodles. Or sauté spiralized beets in olive oil and top with raw goat cheese, a little bit of bacon, and chopped walnuts, says Annie Lawless, cofounder of Suja Juice and co-author of The Suja Juice Solution. How good does that sound? (Check out these 5 spiralized dinners that can help you lose 5 pounds.)

Add a flavor finisher.
Like a sprinkle of Parmesan on pasta or a dab of butter on a splurge-worthy steak, cooked veggies taste even better when you add a flourish of last-minute flavor. Try squeezing fresh lemon juice on roasted broccoli or cauliflower, sprinkling cumin-scented sea salt for steamed carrots, or tossing roasted root vegetables with a mixture of pungent minced fresh ginger, garlic, and orange zest, says Earthbound Farm executive chef Sarah LaCasse.

Up your broth game.
We'll admit it: Even homemade vegetable broth isn't all that special. Until you caramelize your vegetables and deglaze your pan with white soy sauce and tomato before adding your liquid—along with a few handfuls of umami-rich seaweed, dried mushrooms, and nutritional yeast. That's what Picholine's chef Terrance Brennan does to make a vegan "bone broth" for his vegetarian tasting menu—and how you might want to build a more flavor-packed veggie soup, too.

Try tomatoes with sherry.
A drizzle of syrupy balsamic vinegar is the classic compliment for ripe summer tomatoes. But a few dashes of sherry vinegar is even better, says Melissa King, a private chef and founder of the Co+Lab pop-up restaurant in San Francisco. It delivers the acidity you crave minus balsamic's overpowering sweetness, so you get more fresh tomato flavor.

Go ahead and Bragg.
Instead of drizzling steamed veggies with the usual soy sauce, try Bragg Liquid Amino Acids instead, recommends Kerry Dunnington, author of Tasting the Seasons. The all-natural protein concentrate is derived from soybeans just like tamari or shoyu, but boasts a lighter (yet still umami-rich) flavor. "When I season with soy sauce, it tastes like the vegetables are drowning in sodium. When I use Bragg, it tastes like I've properly seasoned my vegetables," Dunnington says.